Trump's Republican primary campaign

[Fear_Itself]

@SlackerInc

I guess the only way in which we really disagree is that what you call an impossibility I call possible but very unlikely. After all, George Wallace got some electoral votes.

Because Wallace carried five southern states. If Bloomberg doesn’t win any states, he doesn’t get any electoral votes.

[SlackerInc]

@Fear_Itself

Because Wallace carried five southern states. If Bloomberg doesn’t win any states, he doesn’t get any electoral votes.

I’m finding it rather annoying, this repeated implication that I wasn’t already *well *aware of that fact. Again, here’s what I wrote earlier, with emphases added:

I doubt he would win any states. But in the hypothetical case advanced that he wins a plurality of the popular vote nationwide, he certainly would win states but almost certainly not 270 + electoral votes.

And then, in the post you quoted, but the one sentence you did not:

Is it truly impossible to conceive that Bloomberg might have a nonzero chance of getting 35% of the vote in New York State, against Sanders and Trump?

The implication, I thought was clear, was that this putative 35% would be a plurality, with Sanders and Trump equally dividing the other 65%. In which case Bloomberg would get New York’s 29 electoral votes.

Again, though, in the *hypothetical *I was responding to, Bloomberg gets a plurality of the national popular vote (though I agree that won’t happen), which would almost certainly mean he’d get more than 29 EVs, while almost certainly getting fewer than 270 even within this very unlikely hypothetical.

[JohnT]

Lots of Trump news in the past few hours!

Trump campaign confirms he will NOT participate in Thursday’s debate

Jerry Falwell Jr. officially endorses Trump

Shocker! AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio endorses the Donald

Hell, even noted racist, homophobic idiot, former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker (he of the “I’m sick of all these New York furriners!” (paraphrased) fame) endorsed Trump.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@JohnT

Lots of Trump news in the past few hours!

So, many that you missed an important one. Trump got an endorsement from Balloon Boy.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

TRUMP urges giving Medicare the power to negotiate for lower drug prices in negotiating with the parasitical bloodsucking leeches of the pharmaceutical companies:

Trump backs Medicare negotiating drug prices

Donald Trump said tonight he could save Medicare billions of dollars by allowing it to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies – embracing a position Democrats have championed and Republicans have opposed for years.
The Associated Press quotes Trump as telling a crowd in Farmington, N.H., that Medicare, a huge buyer of prescription drugs, could “save $300 billion” a year if it negotiated discounts.

“We don’t do it,” he said. “Why? Because of the drug companies.”

TRUMP urges preservation of our natural landscape and conservation of resources:

Donald Trump’s argument for conservation of public lands is pretty liberal.Amid calls from Ted Cruz and the Bundys of his party to turn over federally owned lands to states to do what they wish, Trump has taken a controversial stand: He wants to protect public lands. “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do,” Trump told Field & Stream, according to CBS News. “I don’t think it’s something that should be sold.”
His most surprising statement, though, is his argument that the domestic boom in oil and gas drilling should be an extra incentive to slow down:

Right now, we’re at a very interesting point because right now there’s so much energy. And maybe that’s an advantage and maybe—actually, it’s more of an advantage in terms of your question because we don’t have to do the kind of drilling that we did. I am for energy exploration, as long as we don’t do anything to damage the land. And right now we don’t need too much—there’s a lot of energy.

[GIGObuster]

@BrainGlutton

Sheriff Joe Arpaio heads to Iowa to endorse Trump.

Ah, yes, remember six degrees of separation?

Trumps makes it painfully easy to link the Militants in Oregon:

Sheriff Joe belongs to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. An association of sheriffs that think that “the highest executive authority in a county and therefore constitutionally empowered to be able to keep federal agents out of the county”. He and his group gave a "sheriff of the year award to Grant County sheriff Glenn Palmer who recently urged the federal government and sheriff Dave Ward to release the Hammonds and letting the nice Bundistas go away with not even a slap on their hands.

Any moment now, the so called liberal media will pound on Arpaio and Trump…

I’m not going to hold my breath, I can only conclude that now the media is willfully ignoring very unsavory connections and truly authoritarian moves from sheriffs in America and the media is not caring much about presidential candidates getting in bed with them.

[JohnT]

Please stop capitalizing his whole name, Qin. It’s irritating as all hell and automatically detracts from your message. Thanks.

[GIGObuster]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

TRUMP urges giving Medicare the power to negotiate for lower drug prices in negotiating with the parasitical bloodsucking leeches of the pharmaceutical companies:

Now that I grant is a very good thing, now I wonder if he will turn more good than bad?

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

TRUMP urges preservation of our natural landscape and conservation of resources:

Oh well, talk was cheap indeed, until I see Trump condemning Arpaio and the other Sheriffs (see my previous post) this is just smoke and just words.

[SlackerInc]

The endorsement from Rocker is such a shocker (not). They are perfect for each other.

[Rick_Kitchen]

Trump’s latest racist retweet

[BrainGlutton]

@GIGObuster

Ah, yes, remember six degrees of separation?

Trumps makes it painfully easy to link the Militants in Oregon:

Sheriff Joe belongs to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. An association of sheriffs that think that “the highest executive authority in a county and therefore constitutionally empowered to be able to keep federal agents out of the county”.

Well, then, why should he care who’s president?!

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Rick_Kitchen

Trump’s latest racist retweet

He’s just mad that this particular Saudi prince took his boat from him one of the times the supposedly brilliant businessman went broke and needed a handout.

[BrainGlutton]

Brussels Strikes Back.

Brussels has responded with dignified outrage after U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump described the city as a “ hellhole.”

“You go to Brussels. I was in Brussels a long time ago — 20 years ago — so beautiful, everything’s so beautiful. It’s like living in a hellhole right now,” Trump told Fox.

Belgians took to social media, posting delightful pictures of their city to show the Republican what he’s missing, using the hashtag #Hellhole.

[LSLGuy]

@BrainGlutton

Brussels Strikes Back.

Somehow “Brussels strikes back” reminds me of that old John Cleese / Jamie Lee Curtis movie Fierce Creatures.

“That’s just a cute little lemur. No, they’re fierce, they’ll raze whole villages when they get their back up!!!” etc.

[Quartz]

@BrainGlutton

Brussels Strikes Back.

The last time I went to Brussels, it was very dirty.

[Superdude]

@Quartz

The last time I went to Brussels, it was very dirty.

I bought bread there once. The vendor was 6’4", and full of muscles. I said “do you speak my language?”

He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.

[adaher]

The NY Times talks about Trump’s appeal to union voters:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/business/donald-trump-unions.html?_r=0

But the union’s president, Mary Kay Henry, acknowledged that Mr. Trump holds appeal even for some of her members. “There is deep economic anxiety among our members and the people we’re trying to organize that I believe Donald Trump’s message is tapping into,” Ms. Henry said.

In expressing her concern, Ms. Henry reflected a different form of anxiety that is weighing on some union leaders and Democratic operatives: their fear that Mr. Trump, if not effectively countered, may draw an unusually large number of union voters in a possible general election matchup. This could, in turn, bolster Republicans in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which President Obama won twice.

The source of the attraction to Mr. Trump, say union members and leaders, is manifold: the candidate’s unapologetically populist positions on certain economic issues, particularly trade; a frustration with the impotence of conventional politicians; and above all, a sense that he rejects the norms of Washington discourse.

“They feel he’s the one guy who’s saying what’s on people’s minds,” Thomas Hanify, the president of the Indiana state firefighters union, said of his rank and file.

Mr. Hanify said that Mr. Trump has so far dominated the “firehouse chatter” in his state. While he allowed that his members tilt Republican, he estimated that most followed the lead of the union’s international leadership and supported Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012.

[SlackerInc]

Most of the union guys that would consider voting for Trump did not vote for Obama, not in 2012 anyway. But he might pull a few of them; however it will not be anywhere near the number of married suburban women who voted for Romney but will flip to Hillary if Trump is the nominee.

[RTFirefly]

@SlackerInc

The endorsement from Rocker is such a shocker (not). They are perfect for each other.

I’d managed to forget all about John Rocker until I saw that.

If I were a politician and Rocker endorsed me, I’d repudiate his endorsement.

[SlackerInc]

If I were a politician and Rocker endorsed me, I’d reexamine my whole life!